The World of Grandpa Don

The Secret of Life

Reaching the milestone marking three quarters of a century along the road of life prompts me to reflect on some of the insights gathered along the way on this fantastic passage. It has been a journey of many detours and poorly marked roads very seldom leading to what I thought to be my destinations. We all set out on various routs seeking Success, Happiness and Love, each of us armed with the illusion that we know the way to the place at which they abide. Very often, thinking we have arrived, we find that they have abandoned the place or, indeed, have never been there. We select another path and continue our search for our elusive quarry.

I believe I have found the secret. In fact, I believe I have found all three. I could bask in my success and smugly stand by to let you all flounder as I had for so long but part of the price of finding them was their insistence that the secret be shared. And so, I will. I speak from the male perspective but if you are of the opposite sex please feel free to interpolate the gender to suit your needs.

Seeking Success

We are told that Success will lead us to Happiness and Love and that it depends on our abilities, talents, education, hard work, or various combinations of these. We set out on the road of life seeking Success. For some it starts with education leading to a job with advancement to some lofty position. For others it may be in sports, a trade or it may be a combination of paths. The paths are many, some smooth and others either rocky of clogged with mud. A few try to find a short cut and try to take Success from others. We think we will recognize Success when we find her but she can be elusive. She can be like a chameleon, changing her appearance and seeming to be something she is not.

The fact is that our basic definition of success is wrong and that is what makes her so had to find. We really don't know what we are looking for and so we don't recognize her when we see her along the way. The harder we look and the farther we travel, the more she hides, seeming to take delight in eluding us like a child playing hide and seek.  She teases and chides us, ever moving from place to place, just out of our sight.

But, like the child playing a game, she is not satisfied if she is not found and therein lies the secret. If her playmates stop looking, the child will reveal herself, taking pleasure in the fact that she has remained hidden until her playmates have surrendered to her. She wants and needs to be found.

And so, in life, to find success, we must stop looking. Our degrees, jobs, fame, money and possessions were not the goal at all. These are our occupations and our livelihood and though they deserve our best efforts they do not define success. Rather than seek her in some distant accomplishment we should live success in everything we do as we journey along the road. When we reach within ourselves and do everything to the best of our ability, no matter how trivial the task, we are living successfully and discover that she has been with us all the time. Accomplishing every task with the intention of leaving on it our mark of pride will insure that success will seek us out and overwhelm us in ways we never dreamed possible. In living this way we have a continuing sense of accomplishment and our efforts will be rewarded by the recognition of others as well. 

Seeking Happiness

We believe that Happiness is also to be gained as a result of diligently seeking her. She is perused in diversions of all kinds and we believe that when we find success, Happiness will also be with her. As we travel the road of life looking for Success, we pause and bemoan the fact that Happiness eludes us. There is momentary joy at times but Happiness is not found in instant gratification of the senses. The fact is that Happiness and Success are sisters and much alike. Happiness loves to tease and then hide as we look to entertainment, possessions and other travelers on the road of life to make us happy.

Like Success, Happiness is not something to be found, but something to share. As with her sister, we need to stop looking. When we are kind, generous and helpful, seeking to make others happy, she rewards us with her gifts. She is not at the end of some road but with us all the time waiting to be shared so she can expand and satisfy us beyond our expectations.

Seeking Love

We want Love. Love is a basic human need and we are not complete without love. But what is it? How can we find it if we don't know what it is? It is not sex! It is not passion. It is not even deep affection. It is more like loyalty but it is much more than that. As with Success and Happiness we seek it in the wrong places because we seek the wrong things. We look for Love to come to us, ... to be loved. Sometimes we try to buy it or even coerce it from others.

If Success and Happiness are sisters, then Love is their mother. They are born from her and she is born from us. If we would find Love, we must stop looking. She is already locked within us, an integral part of the person God created. She must be released and shared in order to come alive.

Unfortunately we sometimes love ourselves first and then others, but this is our ego speaking and it is really infatuation, not love.  Even when we do share her we sometimes treat her as a limited commodity saying that we love this one or that one more than anyone else. Or we may restrict our love to family believing that to extend our love to others would somehow be disloyal. We even put love of family before love of God for this reason. 

But, as stated earlier, we have love as an integral part of us, placed there by God who is infinite, and so, love is limitless. When we offer our love to God, it is magnified far beyond what was there originally so that we have more to give than if we had not offered it to God. And so the secrete of love is in the sharing, first with God and then with the world and in doing so, it will return to us and overwhelm us in God's generosity.

The Secrete

The Secrete of life then is that all we need has been placed within us and within others by God. It is up to each of us to release it by sharing it freely so it can be returned ... magnified and enhanced. It is up to each one of us to start the process and in doing so, invite others to join and participate in living the life of Success, Happiness and Love.

Grandpa Don Plefka
©05/06/2006